


Toph's Adventures

by PoisonIvy_123



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Earth Rumble, Gen, Maybe more if it comes to it, Pre-Aang Gaang, Some ocs but only for one chapter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-17 13:01:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29966766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoisonIvy_123/pseuds/PoisonIvy_123
Summary: A series of works, telling the stories of Toph Beifong, the Blind Bandit, before and after joining the Aang Gaang. Some are from before, some are during and some will be after the end of the Hundred Year War.
Relationships: Lao Beifong & Toph Beifong, Poppy Beifong & Toph Beifong
Comments: 4
Kudos: 1





	Toph's Adventures

**Author's Note:**

> The summary I put was a general one so here's this chapter's summary:  
> In the autumn of 99 AG, Toph appears to get into some trouble that could endanger her entire freedom.
> 
> This is my first work for the ATLA fandom (and I'll be honest, my first general work as well as I've only made ship-based works before) but I hope you all still enjoy it! Let me know what you think in the comments!

Autumn, the worst season of all if you asked Toph Beifong. Orange leaves littered the forest floor she walked on, which made it that much more difficult for her to see things. Seeing things wasn’t exactly her specialty, at least not in the way most people could see. Her feet were her eyes. It made her the best earth bender in the world, and everyone at the Earth rumble knew it well, including herself. But to most, she was just a blind girl. Toph Beifong, the kid from one of the Earth kingdom’s wealthiest families. Even her parents didn’t and there was no way she could tell them. If they ever found out, she had no idea how they’d react. Perhaps they would allow her a little more freedom, or maybe they’d become even more strict and it wasn’t worth the risk. That’s why she stuck to her daily walks in the garden where she was still allowed to be alone, not counting the times she snuck out to uphold her title as Earth Rumble Champion. Many an earthbender had tried to challenge her into a fight to beat her but every single one of them had failed. None of them even got close to beating her. Not really, at least. Sometimes she liked letting them believe they had a shot at actually beating the great Blind Bandit but soon proved them wrong. But now there she was again, standing right in front of yet another fighter who thought he could steal her Champion title away from her. Using her feet to see, the little girl knew the man was only a couple of meters away, yet far away enough so she could attack him without getting into trouble herself. After a slight movement with her right foot, a gigantic pole jumped out of the ground and threw her opponent off the arena and into the crowd. The earthbending master was given her champion belt once more, which she  triumphantly held in the air. As she walked down the stairs to the wall she usually disappeared into, she felt like she had to stop and take a look around. Well, look around the way she did. As soon as she had a clear vision of the people around her, Toph tensed a little. There was one silhouette that was special, one she had never sensed at any of her previous fights. Chen Rang, one of the Beifong family servants, was standing in the crowd. She could tell it was him due to his signature lean of his shoulders. 

As soon as Toph had noticed who the man was, she started running. Sure, she wasn’t wearing her normal clothes, but Chen was usually the one to bring her to the dining room whenever her parents needed her there. He knew her. He knew her hair style, her smile and her smirk, he knew how tall or rather how short she was. If he had taken even one look at the girl, she was sure he had recognised her. There was no way she could let him follow her and there was no way she was going to let him tell on her to her parents. It all sounded so childish but it was necessary. Followed by confused whispers at her running away, Beifong quickly opened the wall up and ran in, only to close it as soon as she was able to without crushing herself. Once she made her way to the maze she created when she first took on the identity of the Blind Bandit, the little girl started running. She didn’t know where she had to go yet seeing as she had no idea what she had to do about Chen seeing her at the Rumble, but what she did know was that she needed a safe place to think about it. Running was hard with leaves everywhere on the ground but Toph was somehow able to avoid stepping on any. She thanked her amazing seismic senses in her thoughts before jumping over a stone fence and sitting down on the ground, panting after her small run. 

Gyi To was an old lady, living her quiet days in the city of Gaoling. Most of her days, she woke up, had breakfast and then went for a walk to the park to feed the turtle ducks. But that day was different. That day, as she walked out to go see her flying friends, there was a little girl sitting against her fence. As soon as she laid eyes on the girl, she noticed that the other’s weren’t like any she had seen before. It seemed like the young girl was blind. Walking up to her, Gyi tried to make some noise so when she talked, she wouldn’t scare her. “Well, hello there.” The grey woman gave her a gentle smile. “I’m Gyi To. What’s your name?”

Toph obviously already knew the woman was there due to her impeccable hearing and her seismic senses. She stood up, still panting a little, and pushed the stone fence up with her earthbending. “I’m the Blind Bandit.” She looked right at the woman. If only her seismic senses granted her the ability to actually see things, see colour and facial expressions. She was sure the woman in front of her would either be confused or impressed, or both if she got lucky. “Can I stay here for a little? I need to think and I can’t do that with that creep following me around town.” She had a little smile on her face to try and come over as friendly. Bandit usually wasn’t the type to try to be friendly but this was one of those exceptions.

Gyi was about to tilt her head slightly at the unusual name the girl gave her but then she was asked the question. A smile formed on her face, showing some of her wrinkles a little more. “Of course, my dear. Do you want some tea?” She walked over to her door again, opening it while humming gently, both to guide Toph to her house, not knowing the girl didn’t need it and because she liked humming. As soon as the little earthbender was inside, Mrs. To walked over to the kitchen to make a fresh cup of tea for her and her unexpected guest.

All Toph had to do was walk and let her view of the garden guide her to the door. Since she already outed herself as the Blind Bandit to the old woman, she didn’t see any reason why she should pretend to be someone she wasn’t or why she shouldn’t do all she could to safely make it to the house. Once inside, her feet met the chilly feeling that came with the tiles the floor was made with. As if she had been in the house a million times, Toph pulled a chair out as if it was nothing and sat down. “Thanks for not freaking out. I doubt a lot of people would’ve been this kind to a girl sitting in their garden.” A slight chuckle left her lips before she realised why she had to run in the first place. “It’s also very kind of you to let me stay.”

To smiled. “Naturally. It’d be rude of me to kick you out, now wouldn’t it?” She put a pot on the stove to start making tea while brushing a strand of grey hair out of her face. “So, Blind Bandit, what brings a youngling like you to my garden and why are you in trouble?” Since the water would still need a while before it was boiling, the kind woman sat down in front of the blind girl and waited for an answer, eager to learn more about her unexpected and rather mysterious visitor. Gyi knew she wasn’t the most normal person in the world. Most people would’ve kicked the girl out within seconds, blind or not, in trouble or not. But that wasn’t her.

Thinking back to why she had to run pissed Toph off and made her realise she still needed to think on what to do about her situation. If she did nothing, Chen would probably tell her parents about her secret life so she really had to do something. The only question was what. In frustration, the girl blew some of the hair hanging in front of her face away. “Someone’s possibly after me and I don’t know how to stop him. If he succeeds, it could ruin my lives.” The earthbender knew how that sounded. “Life. My life.” She let a gentle chuckle out before turning her head away, as if she was trying to look around the room. While doing that, she was actually looking around the room but with her feet.

Mrs. To sighed with a smile and held her hand above the girl’s wrists. “May I?” The woman didn’t wait for an answer, at least not for long. She had a feeling the young person in front of her was more than capable of seeing her, even without a working pair of eyes. No one got a nickname like the “Blind Bandit” without a reason. A second of thinking was all the old woman needed. “If I understand you correctly, you’re between a rock and a hard place. Right? You could cause trouble for someone else but save yourself or bring your own life in danger?” She didn’t know exactly what was going on with the blind girl in front of her but it all reminded her of a situation she had been in herself as a young earthbender. With the war going on, she had to make a tough choice and she herself doubted it for a long time. Gyi figured if she was able to help the Bandit with this, she wouldn’t have to go through what she herself had gone through. “Save yourself. You’re young and whoever you might get into trouble will understand. Eventually.” 

Toph looked up. What the woman in front of her told her actually made quite a bit of sense. Even if that last part wasn’t true in her case, she could always blame it on her youth and lack of experience in tough situations. The black-haired girl jumped up. “Thanks, Mrs. To!” She gave the woman a genuine smile, something she didn’t do very often since most of her mouth movements were either faked smiles to her family and servants or smirks aimed at her opponents. “You’ve been very helpful and kind but I have to go now. Gotta go deal with my rock.” At that moment, the young Beifong couldn’t laugh at the joke as much as she wanted to, partially because of the kind, old woman not knowing who the Blind Bandit was but also because now she had to run. She needed to get home before Chen did so she could stop him from telling her parents who she really was.

The trip home wasn’t all too long, even on Toph’s short legs. Many people quickly jumped out of her way and shouted something at her while she was long gone. Of course she heard everything they said. Being blind came with its advantages, and those weren’t just limited to her seismic sense. Her hearing, her taste, every other sense was better than any other person’s was. Sure, the things the people shouted at her were rude, sometimes even mean or ironic in a way whenever they asked if she was blind. Once she got home, the little girl couldn’t get changed fast enough. She didn’t even bother taking her Earth Rumble uniform off, she needed to get to her parents as fast as possible. There was one problem though. Once she was in the house and in her normal clothes, she had to walk the way people expected a little blind girl to walk. There was only one option left, especially when her seismic sense picked Chen Rang up just two rooms away. 

Lao was sitting in his living room with his wife, Poppy Beifong. They were enjoying a nice cup of tea when their daughter Toph walked into the room. Two servants made sure the door was closed again after the little girl they thought of as fragile walked inside. The man stood up with a smile. “Toph, my little girl. How was your stroll around the house today?” He wanted to say something else when he noticed his daughter was out of breath. It wasn’t bad but she usually never came back from her stroll out of breath. “My dear, what’s wrong?” Beifong walked up to Toph and walked her to a chair.

Toph obviously didn’t need any help getting to the chair and if she was honest, she didn’t need the chair either. She was fine and the heavy breathing would probably be over in a minute. But then again, she needed to keep her act up as the defenseless, fragile blind girl who couldn’t do anything by herself. Who knew what her parents would do if they found out Toph Beifong was actually the Blind Bandit and vice versa? Knowing the two rich people, they’d be outraged and they’d probably lock her up in a metal cage for the rest of her life, somewhere she couldn’t bend anything. Someplace where she couldn’t talk to anyone but the people who visited her, if she was even allowed visitors, and where she had no chance of escaping. Then she remembered why she was even doing all of this. “Chen Rang. He’s after me.” 

Poppy got up and walked over to her daughter. She sat down on a chair next to her before talking her hand. “What do you mean, Chen’s after you, my dear Toph?” The woman had absolutely no idea what Toph meant. In her eyes, Chen Rang had always been a very good and loyal servant who had treated their daughter with utmost respect and never looked down on her more than they did. There was nothing the mother could think of that the man could’ve done to harm or disrupt Toph.

Toph looked in the general area of where her mother was sitting but turned her head a little to keep her charade up so she wouldn’t reveal her ability to “see”. At least for now. Maybe someday she’d be able to tell her parents and show her all she could do but that day was not anywhere in the near future. No, that day, she had to get one of the best servants she had ever had fired to keep herself and her hobby safe. She was sad to see him go, especially since he always brought her cookies from home, but there was no other way. She had no guarantee he wouldn’t turn on her, now or in the future, and out her as the Blind Bandit to her parents or to the whole world. And if he did, there was no telling what would happen to her or her parents. She may not like them very much, partially because of their strictness, but they were still her parents and there wasn’t any part of her that thought of harming them in any way.

She felt bad about it all. Chen had a wife and a kid he had to take care of but Toph couldn’t let him snitch on her. She knew the expression “Snitches get stitches” but even if she hurt him after she told her parents about her secret identity, the truth would already be out and once it was out, she couldn’t get it in anymore. That’s why she had to hear him beg for his job, beg for her parents not to fire him and beg for Toph to tell the truth. It was bad, really bad. Several times, she actually considered telling her parents all about her secret life and that Chen was actually innocent of all the things she had told them. But then every time as she was about to open her mouth to stop Lao and Poppy from firing the good man, she was reminded of why she had lied in the first place, of why she needed to destroy a man’s life. But then the guilt came back and it was like she was stuck in a loophole. It wasn’t until Chen had packed his stuff and given his Beifong family servant card back to Lao that she was able to shake the feelings of guilt she felt. After watching Rang leave with her seismic sense, Toph asked another servant to guide her to her room, where she flopped down on her bed and closed her eyes. To think. To clear her head. To try and justify her actions to herself. Maybe this was all a necessary evil. Or maybe Toph was just a very selfish person. One thing was sure: she needed to do something big to make up for it.


End file.
